


Still Room

by adowtrash



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-27 22:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16711249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adowtrash/pseuds/adowtrash
Summary: All Souls' resident Agony Aunt, Hamish, is my favourite character, and I wanted to give him a little more time with Matthew and Diana than he got in the finale (or the book). Also, Matthew is a big snob who definitely finds witches tacky as hell, and I've worked that in here as well.





	Still Room

“Have you offered any feedback on their paint scheme?”

Matthew shot him a warning look, but Hamish was busy poking at a mobile composed of dried orange slices that was suspended above the still room’s sink. It swayed and twisted precariously, and he gave a small chuckle before launching into an examination of a heap of damp crocheted fabric at the side of the basin.

Hamish knew his friend could be generous, warm, funny, and kind – when he wanted to be – but he was also an incurable snob. He’d seen the soft lines of Matthew’s mouth turn up in a sneer at the indignity of a bright green tie at a formal event, so he could only imagine what it was costing him to keep quiet about a house crawling with quaint, homespun clutter.

Even in silence, it was clear that Matthew’s pretentions hadn’t gone unnoticed. There was a small and petulant war brewing between him and Sarah, for whom tackiness appeared to be an obligation as much as a pleasure.

Earlier, with a firmly innocent expression, she’d handed Matthew a cup of steaming broth in a mug that read ‘Resting Witch Face’ and Hamish had had to pretend to take a call in the hallway to avoid laughing. Partly at the look that had passed over Matthew’s face, partly at his tight-lipped “Thanks”, and partly at the ridiculousness of a 1500-year-old creature who’d left piles of bodies in his wake having to play nice for the sake of his girlfriend.

His girlfriend.

Diana was not at all what he’d expected either. In the time he’d known Matthew, his friend had a talent for finding crushingly dull vampires to date – a feat, given that the women of his species were notoriously vicious, brutal, and more dramatic than Matthew himself. But it seemed he was sentencing himself to a kind of passionless purgatory, one boring conversation and lackluster shag at a time.

And it wasn’t as though Diana was fierce or wild by comparison. Instead, you felt a kind of easy joy in her presence – even as they all sat around discussing the collapse of their world. Just as you felt a strange hope for the two of them as a standard-bearer for everything to come; In their normalcy. In their brief, blushing looks. In the small gestures that told Hamish what Diana meant to Matthew. In the way his hand never seemed to quite leave her, but found itself skimming her knee, brushing her arm, idly tucking hair behind her ear, or finding its place at her waist.

It was like seeing Matthew whole for the first time, and only just now realizing that something had been missing.

But if Hamish saw the small, shy, flirtatious glances, he could hardly have failed to notice the bandage at Diana’s wrist or the silvery bite marks along her neck. And the way Matthew’s eyes lingered there told him more than enough.

Just like Sarah’s small outbursts of passive aggression revealed a deeper anger and fear that she couldn’t vocalize.

And guilt.

The whole house reeked of guilt – from everyone feeling somehow responsible for how things had turned out. For how close both Matthew and Diana had come to death, and for the body that still lay out in the woods because no one had the heart to bury the creature who’d never belonged to herself and now belonged to nothing and no one.

Hamish had allowed Matthew half-truths over the phone. And he’d permitted him time to organize and plan their next moves. But tonight was the first time the house felt properly distracted, with everyone hurrying around, making dinner, and settling into an odd and comforting domesticity.

Now, it was time to talk. Properly. Before Matthew slipped away into his old life and away from anyone who knew the full truth.

"So. Are you ready to tell me what actually happened?"


End file.
